The CYP IAPT Young Advisors

Welcome to the young advisors web page! Meet our team of six young people working together to foster participation and co-production across the London and South East CYP IAPT Learning Collaborative.

Karima Abdou

My name is Karima, I’m 18 years old from East London. I study Psychology in UCL and have recently joined the young advisors team in August 2016. Joining the team was exciting for me as it was my first time being introduced to participation in terms of mental health, which has become something I now feel strongly about as it highlights the importance of a young person’s involvement in the care they receive.

Helena Miles

Hi, I am Helena Miles. I’ve been a CYP IAPT Young Advisor since 2014 . I am now a Senior Young Advisor. I have been working with involvement since 2013 in SLAM, after I was discharged from CAMHS after many years for both my autistic brother and myself. I have taken part in interview panels, various presentations and meetings. I used to have terrible public speaking anxiety but working as a YA in SLAM and at the Anna Freud Centre has built up my confidence. I am still teaching on the CYP IAPT course and have also been co-chair on the Executive Board. I have taken part in the CYP IAPT Hackathon, Summer PIE, and have presented at City Hall and Lingfield Park at the Digital Conference.

I am currently in my second year at Goldsmith’s College reading History. Explaining my job to lecturers is always a fun experience as they expect me to say that I work in a pub, but instead I give them a brief overview of what the YA’s get up to and their response is one of surprise. At university I am a Department Student Co-coordinator so that means that I represent students on my course in department meetings and figure out ways to improve student experience, while at the same time repeatedly reminding lecturers of collaboration between students and lecturers, as well as taking student’s mental health into account.

I love studying history; it is fascinating studying the past and comparing it to the present. My main passion is about the history of mental health and the changing attitudes in society towards mental health, through the study of paintings and accounts of the asylums.

I am also currently writing a blog about walking, my mental health, and history. I’m experimenting whether walking does help with my mental health, as well as looking at the history of the places that I walk around. Click here to read.

Rashaun Pacquette-Simpson

Hi, my name is Rashaun, I am one of the first bunch of young advisors having worked with the Learning Collaborative since 2014.

My journey with involvement started in 2013, where I became deeply involved with SLAM after battling with my own mental health. I have done so many amazing things, and I am most proud of receiving a letter from Jo Fletcher thanking me for delivering a presentation on why involvement is so important. Jo said my presentation encouraged them to have a young person at every board meeting.

As a CYP IAPT Young Advisor I have been able to come up with ideas such as the Summer PIE, which has encouraged other young people to hold their own involvement events. I’ve also developed a thing called the Road Trip. I’ve taken part in the hackathon and attend the CYP IAPT Executive Board meetings.

Besides a busy life in involvement I am a student at London College of Fashion (UAL). My work as a designer has brought to the attention of students and tutors the real life stories of mental health. I am very keen in fighting the stigma of mental help and have been working on a project within Lewisham and SLAM to create T-shirts to fight mental health with the help of young people. I believe the collaboration of young people and professionals will help battle and reduce stigma.

I’ve also been involved in a KCL research group which helps researcher understand the benefits and disadvantages to their project and how they can fix them. I believe involvement should be a form of therapy and I know without it I would not be the person I am today.

Nick Povey

I am Nick Povey. I have been a Young Advisor since August 2016. Though having had no previous experience with participation and involvement, I was initially attracted to the role for its co-operative approach to solving problems and work in general. It has always been a deeply held value of mine that the people who are most effected by decisions should be the ones primarily responsible for making them, which, I have continued to discover, echoes the principles of CYP IAPT.

I have sat on Q&A and recruitment panels, facilitated CYP IAPT regional events, spoke at City Hall for world mental health day, taught on the training courses at Kings College, led the Summer Pie with the other young advisors and much more. These are things that I would have never seen myself doing before hand, and I feel like I have already developed myself professionally and personally.

Zuzanna Ludzik

My name is Zuzanna and I’m a recent neuroscience graduate from King’s College London. I’ve been a part of the Young Advisors team since October 2017. I’m involved with the CYP IAPT programme because I recognize the urgent need to improve young people’s mental healthcare provision and mental health more broadly.

I believe increasing the participation of young people in shaping services they access and integrating co-production into the therapeutic process is an important part of developing person-centered, non-hierarchical therapy models. My academic and professional interests include psychiatric research and epidemiology as well as mental health legislation.

Jummy Otaiku

My name is Jummy, I am 19 years old and I am from Hackney, in East London. I am currently studying Psychology and Sociology. I am also undertaking the Extended Project Qualification on Mental Health Services, at Sixth Form and intend to study Psychology further at university next Autumn.

In 2016, I discovered I was suffering from mental health issues, which led to me losing my place at school at the time. Since then, I have been engaged in youth mental health participation in different forms such as campaigning, advocacy, training and co-production in my Trust, local Community, & national charities. This involved using my experience to make a difference for mental health services.

I was ultimately led to the Anna Freud Centre in 2017, after my local CAMHS Participation Lead recommend that I apply to be a Young Champion. My application was successful and through being a Young Champion, I have been involved in many projects such as training to be on a research panel to review the Centre’s research proposals, being a part of a video on participation. The best of all and one of my personal favourites was the chance to participate in the London Debating Mental Health Competition.

Later that year, a post became vacant for a Young Advisor for the CYP IAPT programme which I heard about through being a Young Champion. I was successful in getting the role and since then I have enjoyed being a part of the CYP IAPT Young Advisors team and taking my participation in mental health to new levels. I also get to learn new things – we provide outreach support to the London and South-East Collaborative, we participated in the CYP IAPT Academic Year Launch Event and have also been involved in teaching through delivering training sessions for the Child Wellbeing Practitioners (CWPs).